Printing with HP Deskjet 820

Tyler Eaves

unread,

Aug 25, 2002, 12:03:07 PM8/25/02

to

Hi all, I've recently switched my main system from
Gentoo Linux to FreeBSD. I need help getting my HP
Deskjet 820cse printer working. FWIW, I never got
printing working under linux either. Any help would
be most appreciated!

Warren Block

unread,

Aug 25, 2002, 12:50:43 PM8/25/02

to

According to Google, that's a Winprinter. The good news is that there
is a Ghostscript print filter for it. The port is in

/usr/ports/print/pnm2ppa

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA

Tyler Eaves

unread,

Aug 25, 2002, 1:10:11 PM8/25/02

to

Warren Block wrote:

> Tyler Eaves <ty...@coastergames.net> wrote:
>> Hi all, I've recently switched my main system from
>> Gentoo Linux to FreeBSD. I need help getting my HP
>> Deskjet 820cse printer working. FWIW, I never got
>> printing working under linux either. Any help would
>> be most appreciated!
>
> According to Google, that's a Winprinter. The good news is that there
> is a Ghostscript print filter for it. The port is in
>
> /usr/ports/print/pnm2ppa
>

In my research I read about pnm2ppa. What I need help with is how all the
spoolers, ghostscript, etc, fit together.

--
Tyler Eaves

Warren Block

unread,

Aug 25, 2002, 3:48:30 PM8/25/02

to

Tyler Eaves <use...@coastergames.net> wrote:

> In my research I read about pnm2ppa. What I need help with is how all the
> spoolers, ghostscript, etc, fit together.

Sorry, my mindreading skills are rusty. Chapter 11 of the Handbook
shows this fairly well.

The problem with many cheap printers is that they're brainless
Winprinters, unable to do anything but print bitmaps. So you need to
use Ghostscript to render PostScript print jobs as bitmaps the printer
can use.

Printers are defined in /etc/printcap. The :if=: entry is used to
specify an input filter; this is where you'll call Ghostscript. I just
point this to a small shell script in /usr/local/libexec. For example,
here's a simple script that will convert incoming PostScript into
outgoing PCL for use on many LaserJets:

#!/bin/sh
/usr/local/bin/gs -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -q -sDEVICE=ljet4 -sOutputFile=- -

In your case, you may be able to substitute -sDEVICE=pnm2ppa without
changing any of the other parameters.

chmod +x this script, and then it can be used as the input filter:

:if=/usr/local/libexec/ps2pcl:

Simon Barner

unread,

Aug 25, 2002, 3:40:06 PM8/25/02

to

Hi,

> In my research I read about pnm2ppa. What I need help with is how all the
> spoolers, ghostscript, etc, fit together.

See the printing section of the handbook:

http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/printing.html

You will need to set up lpd with an appropriate filter, e.g. apsfilter.

At first, install pnm2ppa via the ports (
http://www.freebsd.org/handbook/ports.html), which should install ghostscript,
too).

Then work through the printing section of the handbook (see above).

HTH,
Simon

Erik Nygren

unread,

Aug 26, 2002, 4:09:20 AM8/26/02

to

In article <%c7a9.6198$ld4.6...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,

I think you will find that /usr/ports/print/apsfilter is a very
nice tool for what you try to accomplish :)
Install it and read a little in the docs.

--
Erik Nygren
e r i k { a t } s w i p { d o t } n e t
Linux - If you hate Microsoft, FreeBSD - If you love Unix